


no grave could hold my body down; i'll crawl home to her

by youareiron_andyouarestrong



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M, Minor spoilers for season 3, Pillow Talk, Scars, discussion of wounds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-05
Updated: 2016-12-05
Packaged: 2018-09-06 16:04:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8759701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youareiron_andyouarestrong/pseuds/youareiron_andyouarestrong
Summary: You would never think it to look at him, but Barry is covered in scars. Fine, thin, almost invisible ones, almost impossible to see–unless you knew where to look.Iris knows, of course, but then, she always does.





	

**_my baby never fret none,_ _about what my hands and my body done_ **  
**_if the Lord don't forgive me,_ _I'd still have my baby and my babe would have me_ **  
**_when I was kissing on my baby, a_ _nd she put her love down soft and sweet_ **  
**_in the low lamp light I was free, h_ _eaven and hell were words to me_ **

* * *

You would never think it to look at him, but Barry is _covered_ in scars. Fine, thin, almost invisible ones, almost impossible to see–unless you knew where to look. Before the lightning, before the Flash, Iris could tell you where and how he’d gotten every one of his scars–the one on his knee, from when they were ten and his disastrous attempt at skateboarding. The thin line on his right index finger, when he lost a fight with a can opener when they were thirteen. The one through his left eyebrow, a fist from Tony Woodward during sophomore year (afterward Barry had taken her advice and _nailed_ him with a solid kick in nuts, she’d never been prouder). And then, after the lightning, the star shaped marks on the soles of his feet, where the energy from the lightning left his body (she did research, during those nine interminable months, on what happened to lightning coma patients, what changes they might have, when they woke, _when_ they awoke, always _when_ never _if_ ). Now, two years later, lying besides him on his bed in his (brand new, just furnished) apartment, Iris traces lines on his body she can only tell are there by the tips of her fingers.

Barry stirs besides her, sleepily, but not without a certain amount of pleasure under her touch. “What’re you doing? Drawing a map?”

 _Yes,_ she wants to say, wants to keep it playful, light, but can’t quite manage it. “You never had quite so many before.” Her voice is not quite as steady as she would like it, when faced with the evidence that she could’ve lost him so many times. 

He rolls on his side to face her, looking through those long, extravagant lashes of his, but there is no sleepiness in his gaze now. “Scars you mean?”

She nods, traces his chest and shoulders as carefully as she can. “You got a lot of them–here.”

“General Eiling,” he says. “Turned me into a pincushion once. _Not_ fun.”

Iris inwardly resolves to write a scathing editorial on the General soon and how his less than successful attempts at creating soldiers spawned a giant telepathic gorilla– _then_ see if he gets anywhere ever again. 

She moves to his back, rolling closer to him, taking a primal, instinctual pleasure at the feel of him under her hands, strong muscles, broad shoulders. “And here?” she asks, feeling marks under his shoulder blades. “Who did this to you?”

“Oliver did,” he says matter-of-factly, like it’s no big deal that the Arrow of Star City apparently _shot_ him. “Shot me with two arrows.”

Iris blinks, feeling some of the shine of her habitual crush on Oliver Queen rub off. “He did? _Why?_ ” 

Barry shrugs and Iris makes a valiant effort not to get distracted by the rolling of muscles under her palms. “He was trying to teach me to be aware of my surroundings.” He gives Iris a wry look. “I don’t exactly agree with his methods, but it worked.” 

“I don’t agree with _any_ methods that hurt you,” Iris says indignantly and Barry kisses the very tip of her nose. 

“If he ever tries it again, I’ll sic you on him,” he promises and Iris huffs, equal parts exasperation and amusement. “I mean it,” he insists, grinning. “You’d eviscerate him.” 

Iris smiles, but doesn’t let herself get distracted, running her hands further down his spine, coming to rest in the center of his back. “I know what did this.”

Barry nods, but lets his face rest against her neck. “Zoom.” 

It was one of the few places on Barry’s body that _did_ have a visible scar, so great had been the damage. Other times, not even bruises from receiving a harder hit than usual lasted more than a few moments. Even serrations or broken ribs were gone in a matter of hours, leaving behind untouched skin–to the naked eye at least. Touching him told another story. Iris pulls him to her, letting one leg go over his hip, one of his legs slip between hers–not starting anything else (not yet) but just seeking closeness, comfort. “I thought I’d die,” she says faintly into his shoulder, hands pressed to his spine, against warm, rough skin. “Seeing you swing from his hands. I thought I’d been the one to get my spine broken.” 

“I’m here,” he murmurs now, placing a light kiss to the place where her neck meets her shoulder. “I’m still on my feet.” 

Iris nods, presses her own kiss to his shoulder, a faint pinprick of a scar there from a needle. She moves forward, rolling them over so she’s lying on top of him, looking him in the face, that dear, beloved face she knows like her own. He looks back at her, his heart in his eyes, because Barry Allen has a face like a pane of glass, looks at her like she’s light and he wants to take more of her into him. 

She moves down, kiss the place where his heart beats, feels him stir underneath her, but doesn’t shift. “You can’t leave,” she says, not sure where this is coming from, but it _must_ be said, after everything, monsters and demons and false gods and invaders from the sky, coming to take her boy from her. “You can’t–don’t ever just _go,_ okay? Or if you go, come _back_.”

Barry sighs underneath the touch of her lips, tangling his hands in her hair. “What else could I do?” he asks her softly. “You’re where I live. Even if I have to crawl to make it back to you.”

“I’m holding you to that,” she vows and kisses him then, greedily and without restraint, he rolls them over and covers her with himself like a blanket, like a wall between her and every other dark thing out there, waiting for them outside this small sanctuary of four brick walls, a bed and his body, scarred and warm and healed.

Let the darkness of the world just _try_ to take him from her, let them howl from outside the walls, she knows he’d tear apart time and space and the Speed Force to make it back from wherever he was, and she’d be on the other side, taking it apart on her end, calling him home.   


End file.
